CAPITOL IDEAS: The Great Blunder
Bethell, Tom
NE QUESTION THAT COMES TO MIND in connection with the Iraq disaster is this: Why did we decide that Iraq ought to be a democracy? And a constitutional democracy--if that isn't a...
...TheWesterndemocraciesultimatelyprevailedinthe global struggle with Communism...
...Saddam Hussein was not involved in 9/11 and did not have nuclear weapons...
...Baghdad-born, once a Trotskyite and more recently a convert to neoconservatism,MakiyawroteRepublicofFearin1989.Asa guide to U.S...
...In future, please, can we stay out of wars where men in uniform are in danger of facing such accusations...
...George Packer's interesting book, The Assassin's Gate (2005), gives us some answers...
...policymakers, he seems to have been about as reliable as, say, Christopher Hitchens might have been...
...The continuing American casualties, each death a front-page story in a small-town paper, will soon force our withdrawal...
...It was a "massive rethinking of the city," he allowed, "but someone has to keep dreaming...
...OneoftheerrorsthatourdreamersandpolicymakersmadewastoassumethatonceSaddam was deposed the country would be theirs to play with...
...At that point civil society returned with new rulers and perhaps a new constitution...
...BothinGermanyandJapan,theideaoftheruleof lawwasaccepted.It'snotclearthattheArabworldhas really ever come to terms with the rule of law, or even understands it...
...And so on...
...It isn't like that now...
...I'm thinking of nuclear weapons of course...
...Over the years, the U.S...
...A leading figure arguing for a democratic and a secular Iraq was one Kanan Makiya...
...Its people live under regimes of command-and-obey.Where,intheArabworld,dothepeoplenotliveundertheruleoffear...
...Anyway, it's a dead letter now...
...A year from now the Democrats will be able to claim that they made every effort to get us out but were stymied by the GOP...
...But we should at least have a debate about the advisability of getting into wars where the use of our big guns is "unthinkable...
...has managed to work out a modus vivendi with a few Muslim countries in the Middle East...
...BytheendofPacker'sbook,takingusto2005,Makiya haddiscoveredthathe"wasn'tsuitedtopolitics"after all.In2006,hewasbrieflybackinIraq.HetoldaNew York Times reporter that he was thinking of recommending to the authorities that the heart of Baghdad beturnedintoa"pedestrian-onlygreenspace"ofseveral square miles...
...Makiya studied architecture at MIT and today is a professor of Islamic Studies at Brandeis University...
...Article 30 guaranteed "to the individual and the family--especially women and children--social and health security and the basic requirementsforleadingafreeanddignifiedlife.The state also ensures the above a suitable income and appropriate housing...
...I am thinking of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait, Egypt, and others...
...where human rights groups stand like umpires in the background and call the shots--or forbidthem...
...That's the way they seem to think...
...It comes as rather a shock to realize that Iraq's U.S.imposedconstitutionwasapprovedbyIraqivotersas recently as two years ago, in October 2005...
...But maybe it's a contest we should never have entered...
...In the end, however, you can't blame dreamers for giving bad advice...
...If America is going to redeem the world, it must do so by example, not by force of arms...
...When your team is in a fight you have to support the home team...
...It was a quixotic document, obviously drafted by Americanliberalswhoseegovernment'sroleasoneof limitless obligation...
...As of late August, a Hillarypresidencyisbeginningtolookprobable.The Democrats are in a comfortable place, politically, but need to go on looking unhappy about it...
...But Communism failed not so much because we opposed it as because no one has ever been able to make it work--outside of celibate communities such as monasteries.Theideathatsocietyatlargewouldprosper under Communism was a fantasy of 19th-century intellectuals...
...So how did the Bush administration fall for the idea of a democratic Iraq...
...The plan was for not less than 25 percent of the parliament to be women...
...Tom Bethellis a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Regnery Publishing).T O MB E T H E L L O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 4 5 It'snotclearthattheArabworldhas reallyevercometotermswiththerule oflaw,orevenunderstandsit...
...They support the GOP, Bush is a Republican, and therefore anything he does is sure to be good for the party...
...Also,howmanytimeshavecountriesgonetowar, as America did in Iraq, with an implicit understanding that we won't even consider using the arsenal at our disposal...
...TheconsequencesfortheRepublicansdon'tbear thinking about...
...The hosts seem unable to think a step ahead...
...THE UNWRITTEN RULES of engagement have also put us at a disadvantage...
...Fighting a war in a Muslimcountryislikeplayingafootballmatch with an inferior team that is allowed to carry concealed weapons...
...Dreamers tend to do that...
...It's clear now that the invasion of Iraq was a very big blunder...
...not that I'm recommending their use...
...Usually, when you see that phrase, you know the LAPD is in trouble with one or another human rights group...
...The administrationsoughtoutIraqiexilestomakethecaseforthem...
...But they are almost always monarchies, emirates, or tyrannies...
...The unstated model seems to have been WorldWarII.Butwarfarewasquitedifferentinthose days...
...I've been listening to conservative talk radio-Sean Hannity & Co...
...Democracy, on the other hand, puts the Arab "street" in charge.Attheendofthe(election)day,wearelikelyto find that voters have empowered Hamas or its equiv-alent.Themostextreme,leastWesternizedelements gain control...
...The mistake is to take them seriously...
...Islam, on the other hand, has already enduredforover1,400yearsandiscurrentlyinaphase ofstrongrevival...
...One had hoped for a quicker pullout, but it is too late for that now...
...Cambridge-by-the-Tigris, as it were...
...But I think that at some point we are going to havetoacceptthattheerrorwasmorebasicthanthat...
...Some want to soften the blow by saying that the decision to go to war was poorly implemented,withlotsoftacticalerrors,notenoughtroops,and so on...
...Yes, his was a cruel tyranny, but there are lots of those in the world...
...People went to the polls in martial-law conditions...
...Eventually one side won and the other side lost and duly surrendered...
...And a constitutional democracy--if that isn't a contradiction in terms (for the purpose of a constitution is to restrict the will of the people, not empower it...
...Vietnamisanearlierinstance,andwe lost that one--at least we lost it in the short run...
...Vietnam today, surely, is Communist in name only--like China...
...In November 2003 C A P I T O LI D E A S 4 4 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 by Tom BethellTheGreatBlunder O Bush told the National Endowment for Democracy that "sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe...
...But sometimes it's an Iraqstoryandit'salwaysAmericanswhoareusinginappropriate force...
...Wewillnotallowthe triumph of hatred and violence in the affairs of men," Bushsaidjustbeforetheinvasion.Butoverturningthe existing Arab order in the belief that it would produce somethingbetterwasutopianintheextreme...
...I was thinking about this the other daywhenIsawanewspaperheadlinewiththephrase "inappropriate force...
...Among many of the listeners, the prevailing idea seems to be that we are in the equivalent of an international sporting contest...
...They sought out the people whose messages they wanted to hear...
...And that's what President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz did...
...Another strange provision averred that "children have right over their parents in regard to upbringing, care and education...
...The population was divided into military and civilian, armies wore uniforms and civilians wore civvies...
Vol. 40 • October 2007 • No. 8
